Millington and The Yorkshire Wolds
Millington is a good introduction to the Yorkshire Wolds. It's close to York and Pocklington and provides enough for a full day of outdoor activities. One afternoon a friend and I walked through Millington Woods, which is one of England's last remaining ash woods. Charcoal is still manufactured here, and winter is the best time to visit, when the charcoal kilns are in operation and woodsmoke coils through the bare trees. The wood nestles in a valley, with ranks of tall ash trees rising up either side. Stairs have been built into the valley side and a climb to the top yields cracking views of the tree canopy.
An alternative circular route takes walkers out of the village to valley-top opposite, and back again. Depending on the starting point, the journey begins on a narrow metalled road, passes some iron-age (?) earthworks on the left, then turns onto a trackway through woods and fields until Millington comes into view again, this time far below on the valley floor. The route back into the village cuts through pasture, passing sheep and cattle (and an impressive bull), and ends on a gravel lane at a junction near the pub and tea shop.
The latter is worth a visit; a green out front means that tea and cake can be taken on trestle tables in the sun; if you can avoid the dive-bombing wasps, so much the better.
The Yorkshire Wolds are part of a seam of chalk that begins in the West Country and ends at the East Yorkshire coast between Filey and Flamborough Head. They lie within the area known as the East 'Riding', from the Old English 'thrithing'. Each thrithing would have its own meeting place or 'thing'. Smaller divisions established by the Danes were known as 'wapentakes', which correspond with the Saxon 'hundreds' in other parts of the country such as Suffolk (which were themselves subdivided into 'ferdings', or one quarter of a hundred.)
The word 'wold' has a mixed etymlogy: the Old English 'wald', West Saxon 'weald' and Old Frisian / Saxon 'wald' all mean 'forest'. The Old Norse 'vollr' means 'untilled field or plain'. Pre 16th century 'wold' referred to a densely wooded area; thereafter it came to mean a piece of open country, and subsequently an elevated tract of moorland or rolling uplands.
In the same way that Suffolk reflects its Frisian and Saxon heritage, so the East Riding dialect, place names, customs and lore are steeped in Danish origins (such as the village of Wetwang, which may refer to its usage as a Viking witness field or 'Vettvang'.)
The Wolds are a labyrinth of steep grassed valleys, interspersed with arable farmland. If it were not for their scale, the valleys could be man made banks and ditches, as they resemble the earthworks at sites such as Devil's Dyke. Walking the wolds is an exhiliarating experience: due to the relative flatness of the surrounding Vale of York, the hills are dramatically elevated, and provide stunning views to the west and south.
Posted by monoman at 01:50 PM on November 03, 2008
Worstival
Bestival. Or Worstival. Only after two weeks of therapy can I now reveal the true horror of that fateful and eldritch weekend. Rain. Never seen rain like it - great hulking gobbets of the stuff; monsoon conditions for over 24 hours. I suppose the severe weather warning should've sent alarm bells ringing, but I optimistically assumed that, by "severe weather warning" the Met Office actually meant "occasional light showers". So I packed walking boots and jeans, instead of waders and oilskins. My mate Tash at least had waterproof trousers. Anyway, my tent sprung a series of leaks during the first night as it was unable to cope with the volume of water cascading onto it. When I woke up everything inside was sodden.
Mid afternoon Friday the rain stopped and everyone emerged from their tents like meercats. The sun came out briefly. We walked up to the main arena - which was like Passchendaele, only with a big top in the middle. Mud up to the knees; trenchfoot; miserable husks of human beings huddling around cigarettes for warmth. The way forward was clear - to survive the day we'd have to drink obscene quantities of cider. First band was The Wedding Present, which was a treat. Caught a bit of the Idjut Boys and Layo & Bushwacka - very good. By nightfall we'd stopped caring about the beastly oomska. Foals were impressive; MBV were astounding. We retired to our tents and slept like mud-caked babies.
Next day, after my morning pissing-in-a-bottle, I realised someone had come into my tent in the middle of the night and emptied my wallet of £250 in cash. And had done the same to Tash. And a whole bunch of other people on the site. The ruffians had kindly left the flysheet open, so everything in the tent was muddier and wetter than before. With our last £5 we went to get some breakfast. Came back and I'd been robbed again - the urchins had ripped the tent zipper and escaped with a jacket - which happened to contain the return ferry tickets. By this point we'd had enough. So we forfeited the joys of Winehouse et al and trudged up to the car. Miraculously, it coped with the mud bath / car park admirably and got us onto the main road. At East Cowes the nice woman at the ticket office took pity on us and booked us onto the 11.30am ferry to Southampton. We arrived back in York five hours later and went straight out for curry and beers. Hoorah! Lessons learned: pay attention to weather forecasts. Sleep with your wallet in your sleeping bag. Don't. Go To. A. Festival. Ever. Again. Probably.
Posted by monoman at 06:41 PM on September 18, 2008
Best free views in York
What with the crap weather and generally not being around at weekends, I haven't been into York city centre in a while, despite living only 10 minutes away. Today I quite fancied mooching around with my sightseeing hat on (also needed to calm down after a little incident on the M62 yesterday, terminating an otherwise excellent weekend with Lord Ross in Manchester...)
The good thing about York is that most of the best sights are at street level. But there are some places worth investigating that offer quite spectacular views of the city from higher up; being a miser, I object to paying for my views, so all of these are also free:
Viking Hotel
The 1970s monstrosity that is the 'Park Inn' (Viking) Hotel has one redeeming feature - the view. Walk nonchalantly through the main entrance, get in a lift, ascend to the 8th floor and then check out the panorama. There's some renovation work going on a the moment, so the view is somewhat obscured by scaffolding; but well worth the visit anyway. The view above is a composite of two photos, showing the River Ouse, City Screen, the Guildhall, Lendal Bridge and the Minster.
Marks and Spencer
Believe it or not, take the escalator to the top floor in the Pavement branch of M&S, walk to the back wall, and you'll see an amazing view looking north over Newgate market towards St Samson's church and the Minster.
The walls
Obvious I know, but walking the walls affords some quality views of the city - and it's totally free. The best section IMHO is the stretch between Gillygate and Goodramgate bars (above), as it arcs around the edge of the Minster precinct.
Clifford's Tower
It costs to get into Clifford's Tower, but if you have the bottle to climb over the railings at the top of the flight of stairs, and ignore the 'keep off the bank' signs, then you'll get a pretty good 360deg view of the southern part of the city centre, without having to pay a cent. The not-very-inspiring view above shows the carpark (should've been a park) and Fairfax House. And a Nissan 350z convertible.
Posted by monoman at 09:16 PM on August 25, 2008
Green Lanes
A few weeks ago I went back to my home town of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk for the weekend, and spent a day investigating a few green lanes, of which there are many in Suffolk. Quite a few lie to the NE of Bury, where the arable landscape - largely devoid of habitation save for a few farmsteads and small villages - is intersected by ancient trackways.
A green lane is an unofficial term, but is used to characterise an unmetalled road, whether a footbath, bridleway, restricted byway or BOAT (Byway Open to All Traffic), that is bounded on both sides by ditches, walls or hedgerows - hence use of the word 'green'. More often than not, these lanes are rich with flaura and fauna, and provide lovely environments for escaping the noise and hassle of everyday life.
Many green lanes have an ancient provenance, being old drover's ways, saxon boundaries or medieval roads. What attracted me to them in the first place was their enigmatic nature; they exist alongside our modern road network, yet are concealed from view, veiled behind rampant undergrowth. And instead of connecting areas of population density, they connect points of history and memory. Like ruined buildings, they no longer have a functional purpose; rather, their significance is determined by other criteria: uniqueness, mystery, atmosphere, aesthetics. Rediscovering these hidden trackways is exciting and addicitve, as is the process of walking them.
On this occasion, I planned a route using an OS Explorer map (211) and a copy of Suffolk's Ancient Sites and Ancient Places - a gazeteer for establishing which trackways still exist from antiquity. I've since put the route on Wayfaring, which can be explored below. I've also embedded some photos from Flickr in the map markers (click a push-pin to view):
Posted by monoman at 07:16 PM on September 06, 2006
